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Hazy Daze

Snap! Oh fuck, hes broken the bloody stick on him! The bastard really is in a badmood. Oh well, at least he cant use it on me now I thought naively as I awaited myturn for punishment at the hands of our beloved father. Moments earlier my younger brother and I had been frog marched through the house in front of some familyfriends who were sitting in the smoked filled back room discussing politics or religionor whichever particular topic my father has chosen to lecture on that day.

We were in the laundry room at the back of our Victorian red bricked semi althoughmany years had passed since it had been used for its original purpose and was nowfilled with allsorts of discarded broken furniture, old newspapers and rubbish. It alsohoused our downstairs loo which an Estate Agent would undoubtedly describe ashaving retained many of its original features including moss and fungi that thrived inthe cold and damp. The Laundry Room was once the home of our pet rabbits untilmy brothers assailant had drowned them in the water barrel some years earlier.

Hed finished with my younger brother now and shoving him roughly to one sideturned his attention toward me and grabbing hold of me with one hand he swungwhat remained of the thick bamboo stick across the back of my legs. Despite theexcruciating pain I was determined not to show it and knew that his tar filled lungscould not sustain any physical activity for long so it was bearable.

Perhaps all the money hed wasted on 40 fags a day hadnt gone entirely to wasteafter all. Until that moment I hadnt known what hatred really was although the hugelump in my throat and the stinging tears in my eyes were testimony to the rageboiling inside of me.

Having lived just 16 years of my life I was just on the verge of adulthood but alreadyknew life for my kids should I ever have any, would be very different to mine - Idmake sure of that.

Some 14 years earlier the air was warm and still and the early afternoon sun shonerelentlessly on an empty silent street of red brick and grey slate roofed Victorianhouses. To the eyes of a 2 year old that street seemed to go on forever and what layaround its corner was another World entirely beyond my young imagination.

I wandered back and forth along the slate grey brick path that ran along the side our house between its rear garden of neglected hydrangers and rose bushes and our wooden front gate with its peeling light blue paint desperate to find something toamuse me. The streets silence was broken only by the occasional bee on its way toa flower bed in a neighbouring garden or an unseen single propeller aeroplane flyingsomewhere high overhead amongst the white fluffy clouds that drifted slowly acrossthe otherwise clear blue sky.

It was the summer of 1963 and I was bored. There was no sign of any of my 3 older siblings and the two younger ones were inside our 4 bedroom home demanding asmuch attention as our beleaguered mother could afford them.

This is my first conscious memory.

Those were the days when nurseries, playgroups and pre schools were the domainof the wealthy and kids were largely left to their own devices. Besides which, even if

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they did exist in our little corner of the south Midlands, there was no way my parentscould afford to pay the fees no matter how small they might be.

My parents met in Norwich where my mother was working in Gooses book shopbefore becoming a dental nurse whilst my father had just finished his NationalService serving as a Lieutenant in the Army and was waiting to begin life as amedical student at Barts Hospital in London. She remembers she wasnt taken withhim at first particularly when they had their first dance together whereupon shediscovered he had two left feet and his breath smelt of onions.

She recalls regretfully, I almost did a runner there and then!. If only shed listened toher instincts life for her might have been so very different and life for me might nothave been at all.

They dated for three months before out of the blue he popped the question andalthough mum wasnt head over heels in love with him she accepted and so on the21 st December 1956 they were married at Norwich Registry Office in front of hisfamily and one of mums friends.

There are no photographs of that infamous day as no one remembered to bring acamera and the brief, modest ceremony was followed by a couple of drinks at thenearby and rather expensive Castle Hotel.

The honeymoon was a short lived affair in more ways than one when on the first dayof marriage he announced No wife of mine is going to work! and in the next breaththat he also didnt believe in contraception. She already knew he had no sense of rhythm so a childless marriage was an unlikely outcome but a long career as a wifeand mother was assured.

My mother had been raised by foster parents in Richmond, Yorkshire andMiddlesborough as her father, Robbie was serving with the Army whilst her poor mother had suffered a nervous breakdown during the Second World War and never recovered spending the rest of her life in an old style mental hospital.

At the tender age of 11 Mum was put on a train with a little brown suitcase and somesandwiches wrapped in brown paper to continue her education at St Marys Conventin London where she endured a very unloving and lonely environment.

Six years later she stepped out into the big wide World with little knowledge of it, fewfriends and no family to speak of. She embarked upon one of the only careers opento young women in the 50s and began her nurse training at the famous childrenshospital, Great Ormond Street in London.

Unsurprisingly mum suffered from a combination of low self esteem and a lack of confidence and although she enjoyed the training and working with kids she found itdifficult to cope and so moved up to Norwichwhere her father had recently moved.

My father flitted between careers regularly changing jobs for one reason or another but often because of a personality clash with his boss or, as I came to learn, it was amatter of principle! He had benefited from a public school education, completed hisNational Service as an officer in the Army during the Malayauprising in the 1950sand been a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF.

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Thereafter he was seemingly unable to hold down a job for any reasonable period of time so as his family grew money became increasingly in short supply.

My father may have been middle class by education and upbringing but mostdefinitely not in terms of wealth which meant that the winters of our childhood wereall too often spent playing cards or reading by candlelight due to having no money tofeed the electricity meter. The smell of recently snuffed candles or burning paraffin tothis day evokes vivid childhood memories.

When we were able to feed the meter for any period of time the visit of the meter man was always relished. This would often signal a refund being paid resulting in atemporary and welcome reprieve from my fathers nicotine withdrawal symptoms anda particularly good refund might even mean a visit to the corner shop for a variety of quarter bags of sweets. Such treats were rare and many minutes were spent millingabout in the corner shop deliberating, debating and arguing over the choices to bemade with toffee pillows, licorish allsorts, fruit salads, mojos, wine gums, pear dropsand Everton Mints being among the favourites.

During the miners strikes of the 70s when electricity cuts almost became the normour friends thought it novel and exciting whereas we were just glad that for once wewere the same as everyone else.

I shared the attic bedroom with my two brothers, Bill and Sam. The room had asolitary light bulb dangling on the end of an old brown electrical cord shining a dimlight upon a floor covered by ageing, dark ripped lino and the only bedroom furnitureof three second hand iron framed beds. There was a single wooden sash windowwhich afforded an excellent view of the brick wall of our neighbours house and if youstrained your neck to the right you could just about glimpse the rows of terracedhouses of Rainbow Hill and to the left the rear garden of the Elkins from across theroad. The chipboard walls were covered in wall paper with pictures of goggle wearingand leather helmetted racing drivers in what looked like 1930s racing cars.

We were freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer, fought like catsand dogs regardless of the temperature and always seemed to be hungry despite mymums heroic culinary efforts on an extremely limited food budget.

Getting to our attic bedroom meant climbing 2 flights of stairs so it didnt get too manyvisitors and often acted as my refuge where I whiled away countless hoursconstructing battlefields from a ruffled blanket. Hordes of miniature plastic soldiersaccompanied by the odd Airfix model tank would fight long bitter battles until thebattle cry of its tea time! would force a temporary truce.

My oldest brother, Bill had feet that belonged on a cheese counter and as he reachedadolesence when mixed with the odour of his favourite aftershave, Brut, the smellwas enough to make anyone feel sick. The smell was particularly bad during thesummer months when our attic room was so stifling hot bananas would have thrivedthere.

I was always astonished whenever Bill got a girlfriend, which he often did, because Icouldnt understand how any human being could tolerate the unique cheesy Brutsmell seeping from his multi coloured platform shoes. He clearly had other redeeming qualities which I was blissfully unaware of or he carefully chose girls witha particularly poor sense of smell!

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Whatever the explanation I always liked his girlfriends they were usually pretty, slimand kind which again baffled me.

On several occasions he used me to deliver a note or verbal message saying Billsays its not working out and he wants to finish with you, meaning hes foundsomeone else before adding I think hes a dick for ditching you I wouldnt! in thevein hope they might go for a younger man instead.

On one occasion he cajouled my younger brother into delivering a box of chocolatesto an ex. As my brother questioned why the box rattled Bill explained they were hardcentres in fact hed replaced the chocolates with pebbles! No wonder women growup with a less than favourable view of the opposite sex.

Talking or even whispering at night was banned by our father who would creep intothe hall way two floors below to listen for any breach of his strict rule of silence. Anysuch breach would always be punished the severity of which would be dictated by hisprevailing mood ranging from shouting to calling us downstairs, collectively or individually, to receive the slipper or belt.

The belt was his weapon of choice and was made of grey leather and about 2 wideand .5 thick with a heavy metal buckle. If he was feeling particularly Christian hewould refrain from using the buckle end which was about the only time our subsequent prayers of gratitude were sincere and heartfelt. We did sometimesbenefit from an early warning system that took the form of a cracked tile in thehallway and when he trod on that we would immediately fall silent and remain verystill. That tile bred over the years and spread throughout the hallway and what hadonce been our friend became our enemy when trying to sneak into the house after alate night out.

On the cold wet winter nights with the rain pit patting on the slate roof above our heads and the wind howling through the various gaps in the roof and around the sashwindow I would pull the blankets up around my head and clip the crocodile clip of mylittle crystal radio set to one of the many nails petruding from the chip board wall bymy bed and listen intently to The Day Of The Triffids or whatever play I could find. Itreasured that radio set which had been given to me by Mrs Panther, a former missionary and a real Ms.Marple lookalike.

Mrs Panther also once gave me a fossilised seahorse which I was convinced if immersed in water for long enough it would come back to life and so spent hoursstaring at it whilst it bobbed about in the bathroom sink.

In the course of those hours before eventually falling asleep I would escape into myown World oblivious to my brothers snoring or escaping methane gas. In the sweatyheat of the summers nights I would just lie there listening to the distant rumblings of the late London trains or a speeding motorbike and wonder where it was headed to,who was on board and what exciting lives they led.

I also wondered if I had been adopted or swapped at birth and my real parents weresomewhere out there looking for me. Ofcourse my real father would be kind, have agood job, a car and would teach me useful things like how to build a den properly or

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make a go cart or play football. I would be sad that my mum wasnt my real mum andhoped that my real mum would be the same only happy. I imagined I would miss mybrothers and sisters too some more than others ofcourse.

My father was fond of taking out his many frustrations on his children using almostany excuse to verbally or physically strike out at one of us.

Mornings and meal times were very tense affairs and those of us on the receivingend of the belt the least were those with the greatest sensitivity to his moods andknew instinctively when to keep quiet or stay out of his way altogether. It wasntalways possible to get it right though and I remember coming downstairs onemorning when I was around 16 years old and saying Good Morning to him andbeing shouted at just for speaking. The following morning I again came down into thelounge and this time ignored him but again was shouted at for not saying Goodmorning! One thing we learnt was that he was always right and we were alwayswrong.

At meal times food was distributed at the table by our parents directly from the pansor casseroles in which itd been cooked and any that remained was quizzed off. Myfather would ask something obscure like What is the capital of Borneo? or moreoften than not a religious question such as What colour robe was Moses wearingwhen descending Mount Sinai? and the one that got it right won the extra slice of cake or half a banana or whatever it was that was going begging. Being bright wasanother essential tool in our survival kit.

The old dark wooden extending dining table would be covered with a thick plastictable cover around which we would gather a sea of hungry faces perched atdiffering heights according to our age and type of chair. Someone was usually havinga spat with one of their siblings and sneaky kicks and inaudible insults were the order of the day until the demi God took his place at the food alter.

Grace was sometimes said and sometimes not depending on how God had treatedmy father that particularly day. I often wondered if his mood swings had any effectupon God but more often than not wondered if He existed at all given that one of hisself proclaimed disciples was such a horrible man. Even if his fashion sense wasquestionable at least David Ike had a sense of humour and a job!

Table manners were strictly enforced and nobody began to eat until everyone hadbeen served and was sat at the table and nobody left the table until everyone hadfinished eating and had asked permission to leave. Anyone late to the table wouldeither eat cold food or none at all. I call my own children by their given names or aterm of endearment such as Darling or Handsome. My father also had pet namesfor each of his children such as Fatty, Dopey, Thicky etc. and he used them quiteunashamedly and liberally to great effect often reducing his victim to tears beforesending them to their room for crying. I guess he wasnt what you might call a naturalfather.

Watching the rented t.v. courtesy of Reddifusion was also a tense affair with manyprogrammes being on the banned list even though there were only 3 channels andtherefore the choice was somewhat limited to begin with.

On Saturday evenings we would gather in the lounge packed together on an

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assortmentof old sofas and dining chairs with any late comers grabbing whatever available floor space was left. The t.v. would be turned on and we would wait inanticipation for Garrisons Gorrillas, The Champions(had my first crush on thegorgeous Sharon McCreedy), Dr Who, Mission Impossible or whatever was on thatparticular evening to begin. If he was in a good mood he would let the first couple of blasphemies pass with a tut tut. The tension would mount in the room whilst wewaited for the inevitable turn this rubbish off! followed by a rant and lecture aboutthe immorality of television and the modern world in general.

We would all be called moronic for wanting to watch t.v. in the first place and told tofetch books to read and anyone that chose the bible would be deemed worthy of hismomentary praise and a creep by everyone else.

Uninterrupted t.v. viewing was only possible when he wasnt there or if one of hiscollection of social misfit friends visited and he could absorb himself in playing chessor lecturing them on any subject of his choosing. Lecturing was probably his favouritepastime closely followed by bashing away on his old Imperial typewriter til the earlyhours writing reams of pseudo intellectual ramblings that no one would ever read or yet another contentious letter to the WorcesterEvening News. We dreaded his lettersgetting published in the local rag as these would often trigger scorn and ridicule fromthe neighbourhood kids or school friends and would usually lead to me or one of mybrothers getting into a fight. I dont think he knew or even cared about the effect hisramblings had on his children.

As my older siblings neared their 18 th birthday they were increasingly seen as athreat to our father and his empire so he would make life so intolerable for them thatone by one they left home. One day my eldest sister, Vicky returned home for lunch20 minutes late with her boyfriend, Geoff who was greeted by my fathers friendlygreeting of You pig! How dare you bring my daughter home late!. Even by hisstandards this was a shocking outburst and Vickys boyfriend was understandablybemused but nevertheless stood his ground refusing to be intimidated by thebearded, wirey old man bellowing at him.

Geoff continued seeing Vicky for a short time at least but one by one boyfriends andgirlfriends were seen off or put off until one by one we each grew tired of histyrannical behavoir and rantings and sought our escape usually through earlymarriage or taking a job we didnt like anything to get away from this bullying tyrant.I guess these days he would be labelled as being a pyschopathic control freak.

Despite the preceding text I do have happy memories of my childhood largelyrevolving around the school summer holidays when we would go off looking for adventure or just something to do.

When I was in my early teens I would often go off with friends or my older sisters andbrothers for long rides on our bikes (second hand, borrowed or donated by somecharitable neighbour or friend) quite often deciding to ride to Warwick, Stratford or Hereford sometimes getting there and sometimes not. If it had been a particularly hotand sunny day we would return sun burnt and Mum would smother us in CamolineLotion no fancy after sun lotion in those days!

On one occasion I was speeding down a steep hill when my valve blew out of myrear tyre for which ofcourse I had no replacement so ended up pushing my bike 15miles home -happy days!

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Pocket money was rarely received during the long 6 week summer holidays so tofund refreshments for our bike rides we would either invite a less impoverished friendalong or scour the neighbourhood for empties or when we became more street wisewe would look for car batteries or scrap lead to sell to the local scrappy. I alsobecame expert at finding old bikes, fixing them, cleaning them up and selling themalthough the origins of the various bits were not always wholly legitimate.

Another favourite way of earning some money was to harvest bull rushes from theGusher marshes (an area fondly referred to as the place where the river dredgerswould empty their loads of silt through a large pipe known as the gusher) and thencarry them to the posh houses to sell to the posh owners. I could never understandthe attraction in displaying a bunch of dead reeds in such a posh house! It was hardwork but it earned what we considered to be good money.

Summer evenings were spent wandering through the green fields that surroundedWorcester in those days or playing football in the street with the OMahony brotherswho lived just down the street and with whom we remain friends with to this day onlynow its poker or squash and hopefully we dont annoy the neighbours too much.

If we were being particularly rowdy an adult neighbour would shout Get up your ownend! which was a bit of a problem if we already were. We would then move up thestreet to our own end kicking the ball against an old corrugated iron clad doublegate until another neighbour we nicknamed Spock would come out and ask us tokeep the noise down. We would for a while at least and then we would see just howmany times we could hit the offending gate before he would make another appearance which he inevitably did.

When I was about 13 years of age me, Bill, Sam and a friend, Rob Lee were muckingabout in Perry Woods when we were set upon by a gang of about a dozen lads whoconsidered we had invaded their territory. We escaped with minor cuts and bruisesbut were determined to exact our revenge.

Later that week we returned with about 15 of our mates which included the Lockbrothers (John who had a limp from smashing his leg whilst joyriding and mad Davebecause he was clearly mad!), Ade who was the hardest by far and would take onanyone, Ed who could produce projectile vomit at will, Darkie who was both hard andmad, and the Sear brothers Paul and Andy one of whom ended up on drugs andspent periods of his life inside. All of these lads had one thing in common, apart froma criminal record that is, an absent father.

Wed gone prepared with weapons such as sharp pointed rusty iron railings to beused as spears, catapults, sticks and even an old pram loaded with bricks that wehoisted high into the branches of a tree overhanging the main footpath.

We waited in hiding for what seemed like hours until we spotted a small group of ladswalking up the path towards us and we immediately recognised one of them from afew days earlier. We waited until they were close and all hell broke loose with stones,sticks and bricks being hurled from every angle!

Fortunately for our enemy and for us they never reached the path directly below thepram nor did any of the iron railings/spears find their intended targets or our livesmight have taken a very different turn. They got away but with a few more cuts and

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bruises than had been inflicted upon us earlier in the week so honours wereconsidered even.

One summer my father decided he would dig a swimming pool in our back gardenwhich made us all very excited and our popularity with the other kids on our streetgrew immensely as its construction commenced. Unfortunately, my father was notblessed with d.i.y. skills (his toolbox was a battered old red biscuit tin with anassortment of rusty nails, a broken bayonet, a couple of bent screwdrivers and a clawhammer) and the pool which was disappointingly not much bigger than a largefamily bath, lasted a day before it sprang a leak and eventually was filled in with anassortment of rubbish and soil. At least we were the only house in the entire areathat had a swimming pool even if it was the size of a slightly large bath and onlylasted a day!

A few times every summer we would set off to the local park in a long winding columncarrying large plastic bottles of diluted squash and carrier bags of sandwiches thefilling of which depended entirely upon the current food budget but was usually either

jam, peanut butter, egg mayonnaise or on occasion mashed banana. Mum wouldalso have baked a cake or her famous (infamous to us kids) school biscuits whichwere essentially flapjacks that if you didnt know better you might expect to find at abuilders merchants, and these were used as currency at Primary School where wewould exchange them for shop bought food stuffs which were an absolute luxury tous.

We would often persuade unsuspecting friends to come with us in the hope that their presence might lighten the atmosphere and provide some shop bought luxuries suchas Mr Kipling cakes or Corona pop, Dandy Lion & Burdock being my personalfavourite.

Upon arrival at the park we would lay claim to as much of the park as possible byusing bags and items of clothing to lay out a pitch for a game of rounders.

My father was the archetypal competitive dad choosing two team captains andalways ensuring he was part of the strongest team. My eldest sister, Vicky wouldwhisper Whatever you do dont get him out for we all knew what the consequencesof his early dismissal would be.

With a single exception holidays, foreign or otherwise, were something that other people did but we did occasionally glimpse what a holiday must be like when wewould all be loaded up into Gutsie our old black London cab or later the Dormobileand head off for Weston Super Mud or some far flung place in Wales dependingupon how much petrol money my father had at the time.

Gutsie was always my favourite and I can still smell her old worn leather seats andsee her long runner boards. I used to suffer from travel sickness and remember being held out of the Dormobile window to be sick as we travelled along and myfather washing it off when we stopped for fuel. Nevertheless it was always worth it asfar as me and my siblings were concerned the seaside is such a magical andexciting place for kids.

When we did have any transport available to us we would sometimes go to theMalvern Hills which is a local beauty spot. From the top of Worcestershire Beacon

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you can look to the West and see the Black Mountains and to the East there aremagnificent views over the Severn Valley stretching away into the distance. Today, Ilike to go there during the week when its quiet and at weekends will often take myown children as numerous generations before have also although my daughter, whois now 21, always forgets to bring suitable footwear and heads to the shops instead.

I did have one proper summer holiday when some posh friends related somehowto the Cadbury family took me and my three older siblings to their cottage atCardigan Bay in Wales for two weeks. Angie and her two children, Poppy and Doodie(!) lived in a large whitewashed Georgian house at the end of our street and wedbefriended her and her two beautiful, if somewhat spoiled, children during a previousschool holiday.

Her husband, Tom always seemed to be in a bad mood but thankfully was rarely athome and Angie appeared grateful for the company and playmates for her children.Poppie and Doodie were Hello magazine kids with bright blonde curly hair, large blueeyes and white teeth. In exchange for keeping them entertained we had a glimpse of what a posh life was like with toys galore and more food than you could possibly eatall at our disposal. But it was the totally relaxed atmosphere engendered by Angieslaid back attitude coupled with her aupairs sense of fun that made such a starkcomparison to our own home.

Packed into two cars we completed the 150 mile journey driving up a single trackroad to a typical traditional Welsh cottage near a cliff top with only one other housewithin a mile and that was immediately next door.

Upon arrival we dumped our bags into our allotted bedrooms and went exploringalmost immediately discovering a path at the side of the cottage that led to somesteep steps to a little sandy beach at the base of the cliff.

During the early evenings we would sometimes wait for the local fishermen to landtheir catch of lobsters and watch with fascination as they grabbed one of their catchfrom the bottom of the boat and cautiously bind the large snapping claws with elasticbands. I remember being particularly fascinated when one of the older beardedfisherman gave us a stark warning, Gotta watch them claws kids or theyll have ya!thrusting his large grubby hand towards us revealing a stub where his thumb oncegrew. I was horrified and my initial sympathy for the lobsters disappeared in amoment and later that evening when some of the days catch were squeeling andturning pink in a large pot of boiling water on our stove I thought to myself, Servesem right!.

During that same holiday I had my first ghostly experience. We had been watching aHammer House horror film in the upstairs lounge of the large Georgian house nextdoor with our friends aupair and were making our way down the long sweepingstaircase when we heard the thick oak outer front door open at which point our friends brown and white Springer Spaniel dog started barking madly before runningback up the stairs behind us. My eyes were wide open as we heard the outer door close and the inner glazed door open but nobody had entered the black and whitetiled hallway so my older brother began shouting at whatever it was to go away. Theinner door then closed and again we heard the outer door open and then close. Eventhe aupair was shaken and I was terrified and shaking like a leaf so much so that itwas deemed appropriate to give me a large brandy in some warm milk and lots of hugs by the rather attractive French aupair!

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Those two weeks were filled with trips to the beach, picnics and a visit to the cinemain Cardigan to see Voyage to the bottom of the sea starring James Mason. Tomdidnt stay for the duration and instead chose to work returning at the weekend andthen again when it was time for us to go home.

Whenever he was around the atmosphere changed and we could all sense hismoods although they were incomparable to our fathers they neverthelesssuppressed the otherwise happy atmosphere. When in one such mood Tom lockedus in a bedroom for committing some heinous crime when much to our delight wefound an air rifle in the back of the wardrobe. In the absence of any pellets we loadedit with a discarded lollipop stick and fired it at which point the door burst open and ata glance Tom realised what had happened and indeed what might have happened.Predictably, he ranted and raved but once hed calmed down he allowed us to go outexploring for the afternoon and when we returned as hard as we looked we couldntfind that air rifle anywhere.

When I was in my early teens my father decided he would run his very own Summer School with a captive audience made up of his own children. So every morning wasspent learning useless facts about coal or something with the occasional field trip tothe local woods to identify various trees or wood pigeons with each of us hopingagainst hope that none of our school friends would see us with our mad father.

Half the time Im sure he made it up because he was not a nature lover or particularlyinterested in anything other than politics or religion. When the effort became all toomuch he set each of us a period in history to study and write up on a chart he paintedonto the sitting room wall.

Luckily I liked history and spent hours in the local library researching my given periodbut when nearing completion my eldest sister informed me I had studied the wrongperiod! As it turned out it was all a redundant effort as he forgot about the whole thinganyway.

A few years later when my father was serving his 3 months in Gloucester Prison mymum approached me and asked Ive saved enough money for some paint andbrushes would you mind going to fetch it for me?.

Now I knew how hard money was to come by particularly for my mum so me and mymate, Ade set out to the local diy store where we liberated everything mum hadasked for and more. Much to her surprise when we returned we gave her the paintsetc and half of her money with the explanation theyd had a half price sale on!

Ade and I disappeared for the rest of the day to spend the other half before setting towork decorating the sitting room the next morning.

One summer my mum received a letter and once read pronounced Uncle Chuck iscoming to visit from Canada!. Whos Uncle Chuck?, one of us enquired. Hes myolder brother who used to be a sailor in the Royal Navy and now hes a journalistliving in Vancouver, mum said proudly. Wow! An exotic relative - how exciting andwe immediately rushed to tell our friends embellishing upon the sparse facts as wedid so.

A week or so later the mysterious Uncle Chuck appeared on our doorstep amid greatexcitement and produced presents for us all. He was of stocky build but handsome,

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tanned with short dark hair and well groomed and in our eyes glamorous. Mumglowed with pride and cried with joy as she hadnt seen Chuck for years.

Chuck hired a dark green Hillman Imp which was disappointingly about the smallestcar on the planet at the time, but nevertheless as many of us crammed into it aspossible with each of us determined not to miss out on any pending treat or adventure. Uncle Chuck always ensured our oldest sister, Vicky sat in the front nextto him for reasons that we were oblivious to at the time.

Our hearts were heavy when it neared the time of Uncle Chucks departure but thepromise of another visit in the not too distant future lifted our spirits or at least most of us.

Some weeks later Uncle Chuck returned only this time with his foot in plaster with thebizarre explanation that his bones had suddenly exploded whilst he was doing hisearly morning exercises. The truth was never known for sure but when mumunpacked his suitcase she found a plastic bag full of Canadian dollars, black hair dyeand a handgun. It was like something from The Sweeny! Needless to say UncleChuck was dodgy but even so he was preferable to the more permanent man of thehouse.

Dodgy Uncle Chuck returned to Vancouver and was never heard of again. Mum washeartbroken as Chuck was her only sibling and despite employing the services of various voluntary agencies in a vain attempt to find him no trace was ever found.Some years later my mum told us he had once been accused of the brutal murder of his wife but nothing was ever proved and just in case it could be he had emigrated toCanada. It seemed he had a dark history and from what my mum already knew hekept some bad company and remembers him as being a charming conman. Myguess is he conned the wrong person and someone gave him a concrete jacket towear.

The summer following Uncle Chucks departure my eldest sister, Vicky bought me asecond hand bike and we headed off on a 2 week cycling holiday around Cornwallwith her friend Anne. The prospect of going on holiday was exciting particularly thethought of 2 weeks away from my fathers tyranny and whilst compassion andgenerosity were two things my sister had in abundance planning ability was in shortsupply. A road map makes everywhere seem flat and Cornwall most definitely isnt so60 miles on the map is in reality nearer 100 on a bike and attempting that distanceevery day in mid summer was somewhat of a challenge to say the least. On top of that Anne had only recently bought her bike and had spent very little time on it beforewe left for Cornwall so she struggled pushing it up almost every incline and thenfalling off coming down the other side!

Our holiday began at Plymouth train station but by the time we reached Padstow onthe north coast of Cornwall I had sunstroke, suffering from a blinding headache,nausea and couldnt eat. We stayed at a Youth Hostel at Treyarnon Bay which wasbeautiful and everything youd expect of a Cornish beach. Sand dunes, warm yellowsand, rock pools and the salty waves formed our very own paradise for the few daysbefore it was time to once again hit the road. At this point it was clear that I wasnt upto another 50 or 60 miles of steep hills and hot sun so I was put on a train back to

Worcester while my sister and her friend continued the holiday. That trip really tested

my sisters friendship with her friend Anne and I dont think it ever fully recovered.

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Most of my sisters could sing and although me and my brothers werent equallyblessed we all nevertheless loved music and would gather in the back bedroom at5pm on a Sunday to listen to the latest charts. We once pooled our pocket moneyand bought a compilation LP to play on a second hand record player but when myfather saw the pretty girl on the front cover showing the minutest bit of cleavage hesmashed it to bits. Oliver Cromwell would have been so proud of him!

The first record I bought on my own account was I feel love by Donna Summer which was probably a metaphorical one finger salute to Oliver Cromwells protege.